Africa's Largest Rail Conference

7000
Attendees |
250
Exhibitors |
400
Speakers |
800
VIP Delegates |

OUR MOST COMPREHENSIVE AGENDA YET, AND ROOMS FULL OF DECISION MAKERS!

Deliver your message as a thought leader on a chosen topic to a room of up to 800 senior rail executives.

By bringing together the leading thinkers in rail in Africa, Africa Rail will inspire the audience and challenge them to think differently. We’re inviting over 250 inspirational speakers, all brimming with ideas and a passion to inspire innovation in railways in Africa.

Dr Vera Songwe / New investment approaches: Getting more out of existing infrastructure

Dr. Vera Songwe is the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa She was Regional Director of the IFC, Country Director for the WB and she was also Adviser to the Managing Director of the WB for Africa, Europe and Central and South Asia. Dr. Songwe was a Visiting Researcher at the...

Nalin Jain, Country Director,GE Transportation

Nalin Jain is the President & CEO, International for GE Transportation. He is responsible for expanding the business footprint and global capabilities across all key international geographies outside North America and Latin America. He has been instrumental in executing large transformational...

Mr Kudzanayi Bangure is an experienced rail infrastructure project manager at the NEPAD Business Foundation. Mr Bangure has a strong management consulting background, having worked extensively with private sector and public sector organizations on a range of bespoke consulting and research...

Barbara Mommen / How can freight optimize funds to improve performance and reliability

Barbara Mommen joined MCLI in October 2006 as Chief of Operations and was appointed CEO in july 2011. Her career has included extensive work in both the public and private sectors. She was a recipient of a British Council Fellowship and obtained a Senior Management Certificate from the University...

Luis Ignacio Callen / Integrated communication for transport

Luis Ignacio Callén, Sales Director -Transport Systems- for CIS Countries and MEA Region in Teltronic , part of Hytera Group,is a veteran Sales & Marketing Telecomms Specialist, with more than 26 years of experience in the Professional Mobile Radio industry. He was supporting the international...

Luis Ignacio Callen / Integrated communication for transport

Luis Ignacio Callén, Sales Director -Transport Systems- for CIS Countries and MEA Region in Teltronic , part of Hytera Group,is a veteran Sales & Marketing Telecomms Specialist, with more than 26 years of experience in the Professional Mobile Radio industry. He was supporting the international...

Tshepo Kgobe / Surviving and thriving in a digitized rail world – making the shift to predictive maintenance a priority

Tshepo Kgobe is a seasoned Senior Executive who is also a Certified Project Management Professional and Multidisciplinary Engineer with more than 18 years of extensive experience in managing complex projects, programmes and operations with diverse technical requirements, in Infrastructure, Energy...

Mathias Linden was born 1986 in Koblenz, Germany. Mathias studied in Montpellier (France) and Koblenz and holds a Master of Science degree in Information Management from the University of Koblenz-Landau. Currently he is working on his PhD thesis and works as Project Leader of the Competence Center...

Dr.Bruce W.WatsonBruce is co-­‐founder and co-­‐director of the distributed FASTAR Research Group,director of the Centre for DecisionMaking and Knowledge Dynamics, and co-director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research. He is also chiefscientist at IP Blox – a developer of leading edge...

Atanas. K Maina, Managing Director,Kenya Railways

Mr. Atanas K. Maina is the Managing Director at Kenya Railways (KR). He previously worked with KR as Corporation Secretary and Head of Legal Services for seven (7) years during which he was involved in the restructuring of the Kenya Railways between 2004 and 2011. He has overseen the successful...

• Railway executive with 30 years’ experience in commercial and legal affairs• Extensive international experience, including serving as Trenitalia’s International Department Vice-President and as the Long-distance Passenger Vice-Chairman at the Egyptian National Railways• Chairman of the...

Maurice NIATY-MOUAMBA, President,SITRASS

Dr Maurice NIATY-MOUAMBA is a Transport Economist and Civil Engineer Economist, with 37 years of professional experience in the above-mentioned fields. This professional experience was gained working in the public business sector and administration, as well as in consulting firms and...

Henning Seeschaaf, Digitization,Deutsche Bahn AG

Henning Seeschaaf joined Deutsche Bahn as Senior Venture Architect in 2018. In his role he will be setting up new digital businesses in the strategic fields of smart mobility, smart logistics and smart city. Prior to Deutsche Bahn, Mr. Seeschaaf was Head of New Business Digital at Verlag Der...

Stephan Heyns is professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, as well as director of the Centre for Asset Integrity Management (C-AIM) at this university. He was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1977...

Brett Herron / Smart cities, smart transport – how to integrate a modern passenger rail system into overpopulated cities

Cllr Brett Herron is currently a member of the Mayoral Committee: Transport and Urban Development (as of 2017), Chairperson of the Naming & Nominations Committee, and a Director of the South African Law School. He entered politics in 2009 as the Chairperson of the Social Development Portfolio...

James Holley / New business models – enabling collaboration

James Holley, CEO,Sheltam

James (Jamie) Hunt Holley, Chief Executive OfficerJamie joined Traxtion in June 2016 as the Chief Executive Officer. Jamie possess invaluable experience in the industry, gained through the 7 years that he was employed by Grindrod Limited. Jamie joined Grindrod Limited in 2009 as the Commercial...

Eng Getachew Betru / High speed innovation to delight commuters

Eng Getachew Betru, Former CEO,Ethiopian Railway Corporation

Dr /Eng Getachew Betru studied BSc Hons in Civil Engineering at Leeds Universuty, UK and continued to read MSc in Soil Mechanics and PhD in Civil Engineering at H-W University in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also did MSc in Construction Manegment at Kingston Universty, London UK. He is a member of the...

Evert de Ruiter / Digital transformation of railway operations in the age of IoT

Evert de Ruiter is the Commercial Leader for GE Transportation’s Digital Solutions business in Sub-Saharan Africa. For more than 10 years now Evert has focused on the railway industry and has developed a passion for freight solutions by concentrating on the industry’s key business requirement:...

Lebo Letsoalo, Director,AWISCA

Lebogang Letsoalo is a Director of Sincpoint, an organisation focusing on sustainable supply chain consulting and advisory solutions. Lebogang has up to 18 years of experience within different facets of the supply chain fraternity .Her extensive range of experience varies within different sectors...

Kumneger Hussien Temuni / What will power Africa’s trains of tomorrow?

Mr. Kumneger Hussien is a Railway Electrification and Power Supply Team Leader in Ethiopian Railway Corporation. In this role, Mr. Kumneger was responsible for design verification, monitoring and coordination of Electrified Light rail Transit project and over 2000km of electrified mainline Railway...

Eric Peiffer / Navigating the operational risks and implications of introducing new tech

Eric Peiffer, Chief Executive Officer,Vecturis

Eric Peiffer is the Managing Director/CEO of Vecturis.Over the 20 past years, Eric has participated in the negotiation and reorganization or privatization of publicrailways and inland ports in Cameroon, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of...

James Sankwasa / The hottest projects in the pipeline in Namibia and what is being done to open the investment door.

James Sankwasa, Deputy Minister,Ministry Of Works & Transport

Member of the National Assembly (2015-2020); Deputy Minister of Ministry of Works and Transport. Member of SWAPO PARTY (Ruling Party) since 1975. Political Mobilisation and Activist since 1975 while at secondary school. Member of the SRC, 1981 University of Zululand and Leeds University 1993. SWAPO ...

Dayo Ogunsola / Protecting data and operations from cyber crime

Dayo Ogunsola, Executive Director & Member of Board,AFIDEP

Profile of Dayo Ogunsola-GislerFounder and CEO of AFIDEP, SwitzerlandFounder, Initiator, CEO member of the Board of AFIDEP, Dayo O. Ogunsola-Gisler is an accomplished business leader with extensive global development experience within the education, textiles, construction, IT, telecom and facility...

Olurotimi ojekunle / How to execute an efficient and successful maintenance plan while continuing operations

Olurotimi ojekunle, Post Doctoral Research Fellow,Hunan University

OJEKUNLE Olurotimi Victor, PhD is a Geotechnical engineer/Engineering geologist, who completed his PhD training at the State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016. He continued his work in the College of Civil Engineering, Hunan...

Dr.Bruce W.WatsonBruce is co-­‐founder and co-­‐director of the distributed FASTAR Research Group,director of the Centre for DecisionMaking and Knowledge Dynamics, and co-director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research. He is also chiefscientist at IP Blox – a developer of leading edge...

Sethunya Matsie / Preventing accidents and derailments

Sethunya Matsie, Human Factors Inspector,Railway Safety Regulator

Sethunya Matsie is an Ergonomist from Botswana. She completed her tertiary education in South Africa, getting a BA from Rhodes University, two BSc honours degrees (one in Psychology from UNISA & another in Human Kinetics & Ergonomics from Rhodes University) and an MSc in Ergonomics from...

THEMES

To deliver an all inclusive rail conference effectively, the conference is divided into four tracks:

Rail freight

Freight Rail

Infrastructure and Development

Efficiency and Operations

Maintenance and Rehabilitation

Countries stories- Southern Africa

Safety & Emergency Management

Signalling, Tech & Comms

Signalling best practise

Digitisation

Modernisation and AI

Big Data and Analytics

Rail Power

Cyber Security

Funding and Finance/ Passenger

Financial engineering

Country stories- East Africa

Unlocking funding

Developing passenger rail

Technology innovation

Operations and costs

Intermodal and Integration

Regional Integration

Policy and Regulation

Country stories- West Africa

Corridors and Connectivity

Women in Transport

Country Stories- Central and North Africa

Pedro Adams, General Manager, Iec Holden (Pty) Ltd

An engineering graduate with a strong track record with more than 20 years experience within theautomotive industry. Pedro also holds an MBA which he acquired through the Nelson Mandela MetroUniversity and is also a certified Six-Sigma Black Belt.Pedro's passion and strength is in process...

Andy Appiah-Kubi, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Transport Ghana

Festus Ayeni, Executive Services Director – Africa, GE Transportation

Kudzanayi Bangure, Project Manager:Rail, New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Business Foundation

Mr Kudzanayi Bangure is an experienced rail infrastructure project manager at the NEPAD Business Foundation. Mr Bangure has a strong management consulting background, having worked extensively with private sector and public sector organizations on a range of bespoke consulting and research...

Kudzanayi Bangure, Project Manager:Rail, New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Business Foundation

Eng Getachew Betru, Former CEO, Ethiopian Railway Corporation

Dr /Eng Getachew Betru studied BSc Hons in Civil Engineering at Leeds Universuty, UK and continued to read MSc in Soil Mechanics and PhD in Civil Engineering at H-W University in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also did MSc in Construction Manegment at Kingston Universty, London UK. He is a member of the...

Samson Bhuza, Director of Operations, National Railways of Zimbabwe

Samuel Botchway, Special Assistant to the CEO, Ghana Railways Corporation

Luis Ignacio Callén, Sales Director -Transport Systems- for CIS Countries and MEA Region in Teltronic , part of Hytera Group,is a veteran Sales & Marketing Telecomms Specialist, with more than 26 years of experience in the Professional Mobile Radio industry. He was supporting the international...

Winston R. Cluff, Managing Director, Cluff Trade & Investments

Evert de Ruiter is the Commercial Leader for GE Transportation’s Digital Solutions business in Sub-Saharan Africa. For more than 10 years now Evert has focused on the railway industry and has developed a passion for freight solutions by concentrating on the industry’s key business requirement:...

Jean Pierre Guy, Global Commercial Director, Alstom

Stephan Heyns is professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, as well as director of the Centre for Asset Integrity Management (C-AIM) at this university. He was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1977...

James Holley, CEO, Sheltam

James (Jamie) Hunt Holley, Chief Executive OfficerJamie joined Traxtion in June 2016 as the Chief Executive Officer. Jamie possess invaluable experience in the industry, gained through the 7 years that he was employed by Grindrod Limited. Jamie joined Grindrod Limited in 2009 as the Commercial...

James Holley, CEO, Sheltam

Lin Huang, Engineer, CRRC Corporation Limited

Renaire Huntley, Executive Manager, Railway Safety Regulator

On completion of her undergraduate degree in the Biological Health Sciences more than twenty years ago, Renaire initiated her research career in the environmental health sciences where she specialised in epidemiology and Health Informatics with a strong focus on sustainability and Sustainable...

Renaire Huntley, Executive Manager, Railway Safety Regulator

Herman HusselmannSenior Dealmaker: Automotive and Transport Equipment Strategic Business UnitIndustrial Development Corporation of South Africa Limited Background and ExperienceHerman holds an MBA degree from the highly acclaimed GIBS Business School (Gordon Institute of Business...

Nalin Jain, Country Director, GE Transportation

Nalin Jain is the President & CEO, International for GE Transportation. He is responsible for expanding the business footprint and global capabilities across all key international geographies outside North America and Latin America. He has been instrumental in executing large transformational...

Timothy Kayani, Chief Mechanical Engineer, Tazara

Tshepo Kgobe is a seasoned Senior Executive who is also a Certified Project Management Professional and Multidisciplinary Engineer with more than 18 years of extensive experience in managing complex projects, programmes and operations with diverse technical requirements, in Infrastructure, Energy...

Olivier Koumfieg, engineer/Transport Director, CamRail

Prabhas Kumar, AFC Expert, Ministry Of Transport And Communication

Sanjay Lamba, Assistant General Manager, Export Import Bank of India

Lebo Letsoalo, Director, AWISCA

Lebogang Letsoalo is a Director of Sincpoint, an organisation focusing on sustainable supply chain consulting and advisory solutions. Lebogang has up to 18 years of experience within different facets of the supply chain fraternity .Her extensive range of experience varies within different sectors...

Lebo Letsoalo, Director, AWISCA

Mathias Linden, Project Leader, Competence Centre for the Assessment of Railway Diagnostic and Monitoring Technologi, University Of Koblenz-Landau

Mathias Linden was born 1986 in Koblenz, Germany. Mathias studied in Montpellier (France) and Koblenz and holds a Master of Science degree in Information Management from the University of Koblenz-Landau. Currently he is working on his PhD thesis and works as Project Leader of the Competence Center...

Mathias Linden, Project Leader, Competence Centre for the Assessment of Railway Diagnostic and Monitoring Technologi, University Of Koblenz-Landau

Lubinda Linyama, Board Chairman, Zambia Railways Limited

Atanas. K Maina, Managing Director, Kenya Railways

Mr. Atanas K. Maina is the Managing Director at Kenya Railways (KR). He previously worked with KR as Corporation Secretary and Head of Legal Services for seven (7) years during which he was involved in the restructuring of the Kenya Railways between 2004 and 2011. He has overseen the successful...

Atanas. K Maina, Managing Director, Kenya Railways

Leonard Makwinja, Chief Executive Officer, Botswana Railways

Born in South Africa; Lady Frere, district of Chris Hani Municipality in the Eastern Cape South Africa on 21 September 1975. Grew up near Queenstown and Cape Town in South Africa and now reside in Gauteng Province. An Entrepreneur, and trained at De Beers in the Engineering discipline and after a...

Sibusiso Maphatiane, Executive Chairman, Naledi Forging

Sethunya Matsie, Human Factors Inspector, Railway Safety Regulator

Sethunya Matsie is an Ergonomist from Botswana. She completed her tertiary education in South Africa, getting a BA from Rhodes University, two BSc honours degrees (one in Psychology from UNISA & another in Human Kinetics & Ergonomics from Rhodes University) and an MSc in Ergonomics from...

Sebastien MAURY, Business Development Manager, Leroy Automation

Larry Mavima, Board Chairman, National Railways of Zimbabwe

Maxwell Mengich, Project Manager SGR, Kenya Railways Corporation

Ronny Mkhwanazi, Director, Railcor Pty Limited

Vivek Mohan, Director, Indian Railways

Vivek is presently looking after formulation of policies related to Maintenance & operation of Freight stock over Indian Railways .He has particular interest in improving the efficiency of Freight Railroads to enhance the customer base. He has an experience of 12 years in the field of Rolling...

Vivek Mohan, Director, Indian Railways

Aleta Moloi, Digital Specialist, Gautrain

Barbara Mommen joined MCLI in October 2006 as Chief of Operations and was appointed CEO in july 2011. Her career has included extensive work in both the public and private sectors. She was a recipient of a British Council Fellowship and obtained a Senior Management Certificate from the University...

Charles NADAL, Sales and Project Director, F.B.O.

Jacintha Naidoo, Managing Director, Nanyata Siyaya

Yongama Sigqibo Ndungane, Deputy Director: Transport Policies and Strategies, WCG: Dept. of Transport and Public Works

Sibusiso Ngobese, Economist, Export Credit Ins Corp Sa Ltd

Maurice NIATY-MOUAMBA, President, SITRASS

Dr Maurice NIATY-MOUAMBA is a Transport Economist and Civil Engineer Economist, with 37 years of professional experience in the above-mentioned fields. This professional experience was gained working in the public business sector and administration, as well as in consulting firms and...

Maurice NIATY-MOUAMBA, President, SITRASS

Dayo Ogunsola, Executive Director & Member of Board, AFIDEP

Profile of Dayo Ogunsola-GislerFounder and CEO of AFIDEP, SwitzerlandFounder, Initiator, CEO member of the Board of AFIDEP, Dayo O. Ogunsola-Gisler is an accomplished business leader with extensive global development experience within the education, textiles, construction, IT, telecom and facility...

Dayo Ogunsola, Executive Director & Member of Board, AFIDEP

Olurotimi ojekunle, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Hunan University

OJEKUNLE Olurotimi Victor, PhD is a Geotechnical engineer/Engineering geologist, who completed his PhD training at the State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016. He continued his work in the College of Civil Engineering, Hunan...

Olurotimi ojekunle, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Hunan University

Fidet Okhiria, Managing Director, Nigerian Railway Corporation

Dr Mihail Patrascoiu, Research & Development Manager, DCD Ringrollers

Eric Peiffer, Chief Executive Officer, Vecturis

Eric Peiffer is the Managing Director/CEO of Vecturis.Over the 20 past years, Eric has participated in the negotiation and reorganization or privatization of publicrailways and inland ports in Cameroon, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of...

James Sankwasa, Deputy Minister, Ministry Of Works & Transport

Member of the National Assembly (2015-2020); Deputy Minister of Ministry of Works and Transport. Member of SWAPO PARTY (Ruling Party) since 1975. Political Mobilisation and Activist since 1975 while at secondary school. Member of the SRC, 1981 University of Zululand and Leeds University 1993. SWAPO ...

James Sankwasa, Deputy Minister, Ministry Of Works & Transport

Henning Seeschaaf, Digitization, Deutsche Bahn AG

Henning Seeschaaf joined Deutsche Bahn as Senior Venture Architect in 2018. In his role he will be setting up new digital businesses in the strategic fields of smart mobility, smart logistics and smart city. Prior to Deutsche Bahn, Mr. Seeschaaf was Head of New Business Digital at Verlag Der...

Henning Seeschaaf, Digitization, Deutsche Bahn AG

Ronah Serwadda, Commissioner, Ministry of EAC Affairs

Kate Setjie, Executive Officer: Rail Chamber, TETA

Mokgadi is currently the Executive Officer of the Rail Chamber at Transport Education Training Authority (TETA) responsible to manage Education, Training and & Skills development activities for the Rail Sub-sector nationally. Previously she worked as a high school Teacher & tutor at Gauteng ...

Johny Smith, Chief Executive Officer, TransNamib

Dr. Vera Songwe is the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa She was Regional Director of the IFC, Country Director for the WB and she was also Adviser to the Managing Director of the WB for Africa, Europe and Central and South Asia. Dr. Songwe was a Visiting Researcher at the...

Bennie Steyn, Chief Technical Officer, ETION

Mr. Kumneger Hussien is a Railway Electrification and Power Supply Team Leader in Ethiopian Railway Corporation. In this role, Mr. Kumneger was responsible for design verification, monitoring and coordination of Electrified Light rail Transit project and over 2000km of electrified mainline Railway...

• Railway executive with 30 years’ experience in commercial and legal affairs• Extensive international experience, including serving as Trenitalia’s International Department Vice-President and as the Long-distance Passenger Vice-Chairman at the Egyptian National Railways• Chairman of the...

Roelof van Tonder, Business Development, Africa House

Dr.Bruce W.WatsonBruce is co-­‐founder and co-­‐director of the distributed FASTAR Research Group,director of the Centre for DecisionMaking and Knowledge Dynamics, and co-director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research. He is also chiefscientist at IP Blox – a developer of leading edge...